What holds us back - A discussion on the biggest problems with Vintage Story and potential solutions

[EmperorPingu]

To the developers credit, they make the game as versatile and amendable as possible, they both accomodate and actively encourage the production of mods, and are constantly making strides and efforts to make Vintage Story customisable to the player - all of which allows players like ourselves to fine tune and tweak the game to our own personal preferences.

In the early days of electronic gaming, video games were primarily linear... you would complete a level, move onto the next level, fight a boss or two, complete the game. We take it for granted now, but the concept of player choice wasn't always a given for any particular game. Ideas like allowing the player to choose what weapon they went into a fight with were revolutionary for its day.

One of the best games to illustrate this point was the Pokémon series. There's an argument to be had that a lot people might have played the Pokémon games because they liked the novel story of a world with magical fighting creatues, there are a lot of people who loved the series because it satisfied a deep-seated collectors itch (a perfectly valid game loop). I believe, that whilst other factors certainly helped and significantly contributed, the main component to Pokémon's resounding international success was the simple fact that player's were effectively given free reign to play as they saw fit. You start the game, you choose a starting pokémon, you then catch or trade what pokémon you want to have in your squad, you choose a strategy based on the pokémon's element types, you choose which pokémon to train, how to train them, whether or not you should evolve them due to inherant pros and cons to evolving or not evolving... This wasn't a game where you turned a wheel and watched what was being played out for you like a movie, this was a game where your choices mattered. Above all else, this was your journey, these were your pokémon. The reason Pokémon was successful was because it gave players a freedom they hadn't experienced before.

As many of you may know, the Pokémon series today is a joke, and little more than a cashcow for Nintendo to spank addicts with releases that barely even pretend to have the veneer of player experience. When Palworld came along, it was such an instant sensation that Nintendo to this day are trying to sue the makers of Palworld, Pocketpair, by patenting ideas like riding a summonable mount, all in an effort to smother the Palworld into oblivion (but that's another story...). Nintendo and Gamefreak took their player base for granted and only care about the Pokémon series insomuch that they can use it to milk every penny they can out of the players, whilst not even providing the most basic levels of game development or investment. They got greedy and took the absolute royal piss out of their loyal fanbase... When Palworld came along, it was an instant overnight success because it gave players everything they had been asking Gamefreak to give them in Pokémon for years but never did. In Palworld, you can go and catch whatever you want from the get go, there are no hardlocks on the map. You can actually catch and interact with your pokémon *ahem* "pals" in a 3D world - that whilst not exactly having the most graphical fidelity was still lightyears better than Gamefreak ever attempted, you can build your own base with your pals having an active role in your progression and having layered levels of strategy and player choice woven throughout the fabric of the experience.

The point of all this is to say that the direction that actually good and successful games take are those that lead towards the player having even greater freedoms, providing an exhaustive amount of avenues for player choice, and enabling as many styles of gameplay as possible. Nowhere is this seen and more critical than in the sandbox genre. We're in a sandbox game because we literally want to do a build and do whatever we want. Imagine being in a literal sandbox and being told you can build whatever you want as long as it's a sandcastle but only this one specific kind of sandcastle you make by turning over this specific bucket and nothing else...

As much as I dunk on Mojang and Minecraft these days because of how "meh" the experience has become (especially when you compare it to the beautifully long-winded  and satisfying grindy loops of Vintage Story), to their absolute credit they will always have my utmost respect for the ethos they went in with:

It's your journey. It's your world. You can do whatever the hell you want with it.

That's the point. In Minecraft, you are the master of your own destiny. In Minecraft you write your own story. The fact that Mojang understood how important this was, is the reason Minecraft is the most successful game of all time.

So - why the rant?

The absolute biggest thing to hold Vintage Story back from growth and player retention are mechanics within the game that don't respect the diversity of the player base. Mechanics like Temporal Storms and land-based Temporal Instability commit the cardinal sin of removing the player's capability of free expressive gameplay. They do not add to the player's ability to do more with the game - they actively make it so that the player has less choice with little to no reward for engagement.

Well... why not turn off temporal storms and instability then if you dislike it so much?

That's a fair question, but my answer is simple: I don't want to. I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on content. Maybe I actually want to engage with Temporal Storms and Instability in some capacity at some point during my playthrough... when I'm ready.

I'm not saying we should remove storms or instability entirely, but what I am saying is that their current form within the game is entirely moronic, and counter to the tried and tested traditional notion of allowing players the ability to ease into progressively more difficult gameplay.

What if I just to build for a while? What if I just want to take my time building up my strength, tools, defences, until such a time as I feel like I'm ready? It takes a long ass time to get even a basic armour that's worth actually getting - and when I do get an armour that might only half the damage I take, it slows me down so I can't even escape gameover when a bear or wolf pack comes along.

A lot of players are like this. My argument is that "creating a new world just for you" isn't always the right solution. Sometimes we want to play with friends, and amongst those we all have different styles and ways of playing the game... therefore, we shouldn't just dismiss the idea that different styles of gameplay should be accomodated as is, without resorting to the excuse of "well just change your world settings" - that's not always an option and it's besides the point.

My point above everything else (at the risk of sounding cringe), is that the game needs needs to move away from forcing the player to live out a vintage story, and instead needs to prioritise enabling the player to write their own vintage stories.

I was originally going to write this post as a collection of suggestions for the suggestions section of the forums, but the key reasons why I even came up with these ideas in the first place were to address the greater underlying issues I feel negatively impacts Vintage Story in many ways. I will include those suggestions here anyway as they are not the main point of this post, but rather a means to illustrate how we can think about these problems, and how to address them. Please feel free to critique my own ideas, or even add your own solutions to the problems I raise. Naturally my ideas aren't always going to be the best solution to a particular problem (Temporal Microwave Oven), but I feel very strongly that the community needs to come together to find solutions to these issues for the longevity of the game, the benefit of the community, and the enrichment of the player experience itself.

[EmperorPingu]

You do not have to read any further if you don't want to. What follows are my suggestions for the improvement on what I deem to be negative gameplay mechanics.

 

Temporal Storms

Get rid of them - or in the very least make it so that they are something that are either explicitly mid-late game or something the player initiates themselves. When writing Thalassophobia (Spoiler Alert) I came up with the idea that Temporal Storms could be something the player themselves initiates by way of them using a Red (or corrupted) gear acting as a kind of chaos version of the classic green-blue temporal gear. I also hinted at the possibility that gears could be something the player makes as well. In my mind, gears should be something that should be hard to make and players should go out their way to put themselves in danger if they want to acquire the resources necessary to produce them (not disimilar to the danger we put ourselves in when we go mining). Also, we shouldn't be afraid of the idea of other dimensions just because minecraft did it, if it works, it works and the creatures from the rust world have to come from somewhere don't they?
 

Temporal Instability

Get rid of it, or make it something that is only affected by going to certain non-ground level areas or player actions, such as being too cold, being in the dark for too long, going deep underground (this is a fine use of the mechanic), or eating spoiled food (although this should make the player ill instead imo). Having certain areas be affected above ground is just annoying and a pain in the arse. Combined with temporal storms that force the player to have a low Cognition/Temporal Instability, this mechanic means that if a player can find themselves in a situation where they're forced to go outside and find a region where their cognition can recover thus forcing them to engage with a combat mechanic when they're just tryna pick some damn berries. Not to mention the implications it has on base building.
 

Temporal Rifts

The least problamatic of the temporal mechanics in my opinion. In many ways the mobs that appear from rifts are a better alternative to the predator mobs (in purely gameplay terms), though obviously less realistic. Personally, I prefer the idea that rifts spread SLOWLY into unprotected regions (regions not protected by Rift Wards) but are both permanent and capped at so many rifts per chunk or region. This would have to entail a mechanism for dealing with the rifts so my suggestion would be to have an early game "closing" of the rift that shuts off the rift for a while (say a month or two), and a later game mechanic that removes the rift entirely.
 

Predators

I tried addressing this problem before with the suggestion of bear traps and more ways players can deal with predator threats. I actually suggested stronger bears and wolves with the idea being that there were more ways of taking care of predators beyond digging a pit (which would be nullified in the predators AI behaviour). I didn't really come up with a great solution for how to deal with predators in the early game - my thinking was to give the players an actual chance to outrun the wolves or bears which is why I came up with an "adrenaline" mechanic. Another way you can slow the predator down though is by forcing them to have to stop whenever they make an attacking move (which the split second times would add up and give the player a chance to outmanouvre the creature. We don't players to just be able to stick these beasts in a pit and kill them with a stone spear - that's not good enough, these creatures should be feared but players need a realistic way to get away from them. Perhaps we could introduce tree or vine climbing as a means to get away from wolves, or introduce a scare mechanic where the player can shout and flail their arms at a bear to scare them off. I know those last two were bad ideas, but my point remains the same, those animals should be stronger but have realistic means to get away from in the early game Their respawn rates should be nerfed.

That's about all I got time for for now. I might make another update in the suggestions forums (or possibly even story section at this rate) if I come up with a fleshed out design for some of the mechanics I've mentioned. For now though, let me know your own ideas, if I can ever break into modding (big if) I'll want to hear it.

[LadyWYT]

The problem with temporal mechanics is that you can't just up and delete them for everyone without rewriting the entire main story. Love them or hate them, temporal storms are directly featured in the game's description and trailer, as well as mentioned directly by some NPCs. Temporal stability is similar, in that it's featured prominently enough in the advertising and the lore that it can't really just be removed with no rewrites or repercussions. Obviously, this mechanics aren't everyone's cup of tea, hence why there are options to turn them off or modify them a bit, but those are choices the player makes for themselves as needed.

56 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

(Spoiler Alert) I came up with the idea that Temporal Storms could be something the player themselves initiates by way of them using a Red (or corrupted) gear acting as a kind of chaos version of the classic green-blue temporal gear.

Temporal storms were caused by a certain catastrophic events in the past. This is a prime example of where the entire story would need to be rewritten to accommodate a change like this. If the storms are triggered by something the player does themselves, then the player, by all rights, shouldn't be a seraph and the Old World shouldn't have collapsed as it did.

 

59 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

Also, we shouldn't be afraid of the idea of other dimensions just because minecraft did it, if it works, it works and the creatures from the rust world have to come from somewhere don't they?

Making the Rust World like the Minecraft's Nether or End is a pretty bad idea. Part of the reason the Rust is so intriguing is that we know practically nothing about it; the mystery keeps it interesting. If it becomes a place the player can just regularly visit and interact with directly, then the mystery is lost and it's just another resource-farming spot like the Nether is to Minecraft. Go in, strip it of whatever you need, and then leave.

 

1 hour ago, EmperorPingu said:

Temporal Instability

Get rid of it, or make it something that is only affected by going to certain non-ground level areas or player actions, such as being too cold, being in the dark for too long, going deep underground (this is a fine use of the mechanic), or eating spoiled food (although this should make the player ill instead imo).

At this point, it's just a worse version of turning the mechanic off. Players would essentially need to sabotage themselves by eating spoiled food, letting themselves freeze, etc. just to feel any kind of negative effect. The better solution here is to just separate surface stability from underground stability and let players toggle each independently of the other.

 

1 hour ago, EmperorPingu said:

Personally, I prefer the idea that rifts spread SLOWLY into unprotected regions (regions not protected by Rift Wards) but are both permanent and capped at so many rifts per chunk or region. This would have to entail a mechanism for dealing with the rifts so my suggestion would be to have an early game "closing" of the rift that shuts off the rift for a while (say a month or two), and a later game mechanic that removes the rift entirely.

In this case you run into story problems with NPCs, since most don't have technology to deal with rifts at all. Yes, they have guards and fortifications, but the general idea is that those are in place for when rift activity is actually taking place, or a temporal storm is occurring. Permanent rifts that constantly leak monsters would, realistically, grind down whatever defenses are there and overrun the settlement, simply by attrition.

I also don't think it's going to be fun for most players either to have permanent rifts pumping out monsters wherever they go. I think at best, more players will be encouraged to just turn rifts off rather than deal with them, if there's no chance of safety until the late game. As for an early game mechanic to close rifts...I'm not sure how the player is supposed to manage that with early game tools, without rendering rift wards essentially useless due to cost/effect ratio.

1 hour ago, EmperorPingu said:

Predators

I tried addressing this problem before with the suggestion of bear traps and more ways players can deal with predator threats. I actually suggested stronger bears and wolves with the idea being that there were more ways of taking care of predators beyond digging a pit (which would be nullified in the predators AI behaviour). I didn't really come up with a great solution for how to deal with predators in the early game - my thinking was to give the players an actual chance to outrun the wolves or bears which is why I came up with an "adrenaline" mechanic. Another way you can slow the predator down though is by forcing them to have to stop whenever they make an attacking move (which the split second times would add up and give the player a chance to outmanouvre the creature. We don't players to just be able to stick these beasts in a pit and kill them with a stone spear - that's not good enough, these creatures should be feared but players need a realistic way to get away from them. Perhaps we could introduce tree or vine climbing as a means to get away from wolves, or introduce a scare mechanic where the player can shout and flail their arms at a bear to scare them off. I know those last two were bad ideas, but my point remains the same, those animals should be stronger but have realistic means to get away from in the early game Their respawn rates should be nerfed.

This is really the only section I agree with. The predators do need to be dangerous, but the player should have a few more options of dealing with them than they currently have. Traps are rather obvious, and making lots of noise/climbing vines have practical uses outside of just surviving a predator encounter. Noisemakers could be used to distract enemies, in the event you can toss a firework or something into the bushes, as well as be used to attract attention from certain enemies as well. Want the Blackguard to actually operate as a tank? Give them a warhorn or something to toot occasionally and make monsters prioritize them as a target. When it comes to climbing vines, that opens up some interesting possibilities for exploration and set design. Climb up in the trees to get a look around, or scale the nearby cliffs or overgrown ruins thanks to nature's ladders!

 

1 hour ago, EmperorPingu said:

For now though, let me know your own ideas, if I can ever break into modding (big if) I'll want to hear it.

Temporal mechanics I've harped on a LOT over the course of my time on the forums, so I'm not really keen on restating everything I've already stated multiple times. In general, I think it's just a very divisive mechanic and it doesn't really matter what changes are implemented, several players are going to hate it. If changes are implemented, those changes shouldn't come at the expense of the story the devs want to tell or the intended experience they wish to curate either. Likewise, changes that happen shouldn't just copy successful mechanics from other games, as what works in one game doesn't necessarily work in another due to differences in story and gameplay focuses. 

Overall, I think the best longterm solution is to just make sure that all temporal mechanics are easily moddable, as to my knowledge those are areas of the game that are very difficult to mod. By making those mechanics easier to mod, then players will have the best selection of choices possible since they can make pretty much whatever they want. More in-game options would also be good, however, in-game options are fairly limited when it comes to mechanics like this. Such options usually equate to turning things on/off, or otherwise adjusting values like frequency, damage percentages, health pools, etc. The core experience still remains the same.

TL; DR: The entire story and lore shouldn't need to be rewritten to implement a change. Players should be able to break the lore if they want, but lore-breaking that happens should be by the player's own individual choice.

[EmperorPingu]

Thank you for the reply @LadyWYT

6 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Love them or hate them, temporal storms are directly featured in the game's description and trailer

But I will argue that they don't have to be.

8 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Temporal storms were caused by a certain catastrophic events in the past. This is a prime example of where the entire story would need to be rewritten to accommodate a change like this.

True, and tbh yeah. I agree with you but I also feel that the point is important enough to warrent the change. It's like that saying: "Form follows function". It further compounds my own point that priority should be given to the player making their own experience in the sandbox rather than crafting an experience of it's own - however good it may be.

12 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Making the Rust World like the Minecraft's Nether or End is a pretty bad idea.

Yeah I'm not crazy about the idea of extra dimensions - it's not a hill I'll die on. The point is more to iterate the idea of progressive development, that we can have benefitial stuff be in other places that are hard or dangerous to reach (like deep underground, or in the sky, under the ocean, or even in other dimensions) etc., thus encouraging the exploration of those places without forcing an experience upon the user.

On that note and given your last point... what if a version of temporal storms was in the sky?

18 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Noisemakers could be used to distract enemies,

I didn't even think of noisemakers - I was imagining like how humans make themselves look big and scary to scare of a would be attacking bear but I like your idea better lol.

21 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

If changes are implemented, those changes shouldn't come at the expense of the story the devs want to tell or the intended experience they wish to curate either.

This is the main point I feel our camps would diverge sadly. I love the idea that the devs can tell a story they wish to tell, I think it's great and should totally be a feature of the game. With that said, I don't think that telling the story should come at the expense of the player experience. It should always be about the player's own experience that (for the absolute most part) they make for themselves.

[Dilan Rona]

You do have the ability to turn the temporal stability mechanic off, and there are mods to permanently remove the rust creatures as well. The core feature of Vintage Story is Temporal Storms. And the entire lore and story describes some catastrophic calamity that tore time itself asunder, leaving everything shattered. The temporal storms are a direct result of that catastrophic catastrophe.

You might want to read the Dark Tower series, to get an idea of how bad such a world could be, cause an argument could be made, that time on that universe is unravelling as well.

Keep also in mind, that Chapter 2 of Vintage story has been receintly released, and there are 6 more chapters planned. With the game itself still being in alpha. The way the mechanics are implemented in the game is imho perfect as they are, and although they had to rebalance the shivers, and bowtorms after release (mostly bug related), they have been settled down into their final version. The drops could stand to be improved though, so it doesnt have to rely on mods to improve them.

As for the predators, no changes are needed, other than introducing new mammels, fish, and birds (looking at the big cats, and owls)

[Forks]

15 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

You do have the ability to turn the temporal stability mechanic off

And that's part of the problem. Most people I have discussed this with have the same opinion as EmperorPingu in the statement I quoted below.

2 hours ago, EmperorPingu said:

Temporal Instability

Get rid of it, or make it something that is only affected by going to certain non-ground level areas or player actions, such as being too cold, being in the dark for too long, going deep underground (this is a fine use of the mechanic), or eating spoiled food (although this should make the player ill instead imo). Having certain areas be affected above ground is just annoying and a pain in the arse. 

We don't want to turn off Temporal Stability completely, we just don't want it affecting surface chunks because that restricts player freedom.
The game does not give any option to disable this portion without also disabling it in its' entirety.
I think the application of Temporal Stability affecting you underground is great, it's somewhat predictable and limits how much time a player can spend harvesting valuable ores and looting ruins, but can be counter-acted by killing rust monsters or by sacrificing a temporal gear. 

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

But I will argue that they don't have to be.

I would say they really do need to be featured, since they are an intended core challenge. If they aren't featured in the advertising, then people are more likely to buy the game thinking it's just Minecraft but realistic(which is already somewhat of an issue) and then getting a rather rude awakening when that turns out not to be the case. While the entire story and all the lore doesn't need to be explicitly laid out, there does at least need to be enough teased to pique a potential player's interest and give them an idea of what they're getting into.

 

6 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

True, and tbh yeah. I agree with you but I also feel that the point is important enough to warrent the change. It's like that saying: "Form follows function". It further compounds my own point that priority should be given to the player making their own experience in the sandbox rather than crafting an experience of it's own - however good it may be.

I might be misreading something here, but I don't agree. A complete story rewrite is not only a lot of work, but it changes the entire game pretty dramatically. It could be better, but it could also be worse. I think at best, a change like this will probably confuse and/or upset a lot of players, since the story was one thing one patch and then changed to something completely different the next update. It also sets the precedent of things changing in the game drastically, to the extent it feels nothing like the original game one purchased.

From the creative standpoint, I'll also note that one fast way to kill an artist's enthusiasm for their work is to demand they change everything about it. Tyron and Saraty are making the game they want to play, with the story they really want to tell. That's one major reason that Vintage Story is such high quality--the developers love their own game and actually want to play it; they aren't developing it just for a paycheck.

14 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

Yeah I'm not crazy about the idea of extra dimensions - it's not a hill I'll die on. The point is more to iterate the idea of progressive development, that we can have benefitial stuff be in other places that are hard or dangerous to reach (like deep underground, or in the sky, under the ocean, or even in other dimensions) etc., thus encouraging the exploration of those places without forcing an experience upon the user.

On that note and given your last point... what if a version of temporal storms was in the sky?

For a mod I think dimensions are fine, it's just not something I think should be implemented in the base game outside of very limited scenarios(like a certain story location that already exists). As for putting temporal storms in the sky...they already exist in the sky, since they essentially make the entire present reality unstable for a short time. Without some sort of game focus on flying machines and building in the sky(which is mostly outside the scope of the game focus, in my opinion), there's not really a point other than making it a weather event players can just ignore. Which in itself isn't really ideal given what NPCs say about the storms.

One solution I've been mulling over regarding temporal mechanics...to me it's ideal to let them remain a net negative to players in terms of rewards, but the introduction of a status effect system could give the player some extra options/outcomes when dealing with those mechanics. Obviously, it's not a good idea to remain in an unstable area long term, but with enough frequent exposure to instability a player could build up some tolerance and thus stop losing stability at all in slightly unstable areas, as well as be able to remain in more unstable areas(like the underground) for much longer. Keeping predominantly to stable areas though might mean the loss of a such a trait. Fighting through temporal storms and killing the unique monsters could yield a bonus to damage against that monster type for the next several days.

31 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

I didn't even think of noisemakers - I was imagining like how humans make themselves look big and scary to scare of a would be attacking bear but I like your idea better lol.

I was thinking that too. It could probably be coded as an emote, and then be used to get the attention of friends in multiplayer as well.

Regarding noisemakers, I think strings of bones and whatnot would be interesting too. They serve as macabre decorations, sure, and the sight might only server to deter human players. However, decoration isn't the main intent here--the idea is that such fixtures will rattle around when disturbed by monsters or other creatures large enough to disturb them, and thus alert the player to potential danger. Skyrim utilizes these things in several places--while they serve as spooky decoration, they will make noise if the player disturbs them and alert nearby enemies if the player's sneak skill isn't high enough.

36 minutes ago, EmperorPingu said:

This is the main point I feel our camps would diverge sadly. I love the idea that the devs can tell a story they wish to tell, I think it's great and should totally be a feature of the game. With that said, I don't think that telling the story should come at the expense of the player experience. It should always be about the player's own experience that (for the absolute most part) they make for themselves.

Hence why I think the best way to solve the problem is to just make sure that the temporal mechanics are as moddable as possible, and let players invent their own solutions. That way pretty much all the suggestions can implemented, so most everyone can have what they want without changing the entire game for everyone else.

In fairness, there have been enough complaints about the mechanics that I wouldn't be surprised if they do get some changes later. However, I think the systems we have right now are overall very solid, and changes that are implemented should be pretty small. A few tweaks here and there, ideally tweaks that encourage more players to try playing with the mechanics enabled rather than turn the mechanics off. Most suggestions in general though I tend to be against/highly skeptical of, because the changes being suggested are pretty drastic or otherwise change the current workings a little too much.

[Dilan Rona]

Lets look at a real world example. There are areas in the world that cannot be entered (on the surface, and underground), due to radiation (either natural, or manmade due to accidents, disasters, and wars). Best one can do is migitate the fallout, attempt cleanup, or avoid the area. Such damage can last decades, to centuries for the effects to dissapear, and the radiation to dissapate.

Same principle applies with Vintage story, the difference being the ability to craft Rift wards, to help improve temporal stability. And there are mods also that make improvements on the Jonas Tech, and in some cases introduce new tech that fits with the Jonas tech as well, and which fit perfectly with the theme of Vintage Story.

Also, the temporal stability can be adjusted as well to easier (or more difficult), and also allows you to adjust the timing between storms, and how severe they will be. No mods really needed for that aspect.

[williams_482]

I think the emphasis on player choice as the critical element misses the mark to some degree.

Player choice without restriction is creative mode. You can do absolutely anything you want, build absolutely anything, etc. But most people don't play creative mode. 

Restrictions on what the player can do and how they can do it are a critical aspect of what makes games like this fun. They give you goals, force you to problem solve, and inject some extra emotional heft into the actions you take. A seraph is not a god: they are powerful, they are immortal, but they are also vulnerable to dangerous enemies, burdened by normal physical limitations on a body of this size which can move at those speeds in that environment, and forced to exist in a world they cannot totally control. These restrictions of player agency are good and useful.

Temporal storms and surface instability are infamous for good reason, and I expect them to change substantially from their current form by the time this game is considered "finished." The primary problem with both of them does come around to disruption of player agency.  Temporal storms by forcing the player to do something different (and usually boring) for a little while, surface instability by forcing them to account for a non-visual factor (which new players routinely aren't aware of) when deciding on aesthetically pleasing places to build. Both of these are tricky problems, but they are fixable: Temporal Storms need to be actually fun to engage with while maintaining the creepy vibe, and surface instability needs to be visually obvious somehow. 

Exactly how those things can be achieved has spilled plenty of digital ink on this site, there's not need to relitigate in detail here. I'm sure the devs will figure something out. 

Finally, the story is really important to this game. It's right there in the name. The developers clearly really do care about it (and are going to have to really get it *right*, I'll be pretty disappointed if whatever ending they come up with doesn't measure up to how they've started). As far as gameplay is concerned, it gives the player additional goals both for general tech progression and the more explicit "go do the story location" objectives, while playing a big role in making the game's world feel real in a way Minecraft simply doesn't attempt. The devs are going to treat their story as a sacred thing which continues to grow but will not be retroactively changed in significant ways, and anything that bumps up against that is a hard stop not worth pushing for outside of mods. 

Edited Thursday at 07:06 PM by williams_482

[Forceous]

As a new player I kind of see temporal storms and rifts being a problem for old players rather than new players.

For me, it's an exciting new game mechanic and lore piece. And I haven't gotten annoyed, the first time I got a temporal storm I was so immersed in the game when it happened I kind of forgot reality and I was genuinely experiencing a bit of fear.

For older players, I would understand that it's probably old and stale for them now, and just an annoyance rather than a cool game mechanic.

Although this is my opinion, other new players might absolutely hate temporal storms and rifts.

[CastIronFabric]

I do not think the Temporal game mechanics is 'holding this game back'. In fact, given the size of the team I think they are doing just fine and there is really nothing 'holding them back'.

That said, I am fine being able to turn off those features and I think that is a fair compromise to satisfy people who do like them (whoever that is) and those who do not (and they just turn them off). I do not think either side should dictate to the others how to play.

I think most people would be find just having those features disappear but that is unfair to those who want them. I do not think its an overwhelming majority but I think it is a majority. In fact, I think the majority of players for this specific game would actually be more interested in expanding the game mechanics into more depth such as steam power etc. I think one can infer this popularity by:

1. acknowledging that this game is mostly a building game, not an RPG adventure game and

2. looking at some of the most popular mods out there and infer who its being catered to. Expanded Foods, Chisel Tools, Primitive Survival, Butchering, Alchemy. One could argue that Better Ruins mod is a mod that one could argue expanded the storyline but do we honestly think most people download that mod for that? I doubt it.

For those who like the Temporal game mechanics and feel its over arching architecture is immutable because of the storyline, I know that they have conversations on how to improve them and good for them, however I will very likely continue to not have those features on and that is fine.

There are two things I WOULD change however and it does affect my game play.

1. I would ad the option of 'provoked' in the creature hostility setting. What that would mean is if I strike a monster all monsters within X radius of me will start to attack me until I leave that radius. I do not want to be badgered all the time however the fact that I can go down to the bottom of the earth on day one and not have to worry about getting attacked is a bit overkill on that request.

2. I would change the deed system. A. I would make it more obvious that there a deed system and B. I would make it so that on your deed, monsters do not spawn, storms do not happen... full stop.

 

Edited Thursday at 09:34 PM by CastIronFabric

[ArgentLuna]

Nothing is "holding us back", we are playing in a game thats still actively being built and what we have in this thread is the common perception that the player knows whats "best" for any given game when the reality is that the player very rarely has anything useful for the game but knows only what they want from it.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Forceous said:

Although this is my opinion, other new players might absolutely hate temporal storms and rifts.

I suspect that new players who experience temporal storms and end up disliking them likely turn the mechanic off after the first storm or two. Same goes for other temporal mechanics, as well as game settings in general. 

[Forceous]

32 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I suspect that new players who experience temporal storms and end up disliking them likely turn the mechanic off after the first storm or two. Same goes for other temporal mechanics, as well as game settings in general. 

I liked the vibe of it, even installed a mod that improved the overall sound effects and sounds in general on a temporal storm. It's not bad, only 2 things I changed are hunger rate to 75% and animal swim speed to 50% because the damn wolves and bears are faster than me for some reason on water lol. Plus it makes it easier to kill animals instead of having to dig a hole for 2 boars.

[marmarmar34]

What if unstable regions were indicators of cool loot caches and ruins hidden underground, potentially DEEP underground? That would be a cool trade off for having a region a bit cut off.

[RationallyParanoid]

"It's your journey. It's your world. You can do whatever the hell you want with it."

When I first started playing Vintage Story, I went into the world settings and configured everything to my liking, because the game allowed me to do that. When I encountered things after world spawn that I didn't like/found too difficult, I found a command or mod to counteract it (knapster and juicy ores my beloved). Temporal stability, storms, and rifts got turned off because I wanted to explore and build first so I could understand the basic mechanics. I turned them back on with longer times between storms, storms being shorter, and sleeping during storms turned on. I have bells removed from the game entirely via a mod because I find the noise they make jarring, and creatures are set to passive.

You have options (many of them), so you should use them. Certain options not available that you specifically want? Start learning to mod or put in a mod request. Just because the base game doesn't suit your particular play-style doesn't mean that the mechanics are "holding the game back". That's a bit silly.

 

 

[RationallyParanoid]

17 hours ago, marmarmar34 said:

What if unstable regions were indicators of cool loot caches and ruins hidden underground, potentially DEEP underground? That would be a cool trade off for having a region a bit cut off.

Ooooh I really like this idea. Perhaps a compromise with the surface instability is that it's "uncommon" or "rare", which would be exciting when you actually stumbled across it because it would mean there was a going to be something cool to go find beneath the surface. Perhaps tie that in with the procedural dungeons they've been working on?

[Callorn]

To me EVERYTHING related to combat with the default setting. Bears alone stop me from talking about the game. Deers  Feel too tanky (IMO a longbow with iron arrow should one shot them).I never entered caves  because of drifters. I feel that everything about combat is 2X times overturned against the player(ie blowthorn does x2 attack damage)

[SCHPETZE]

On 1/22/2026 at 5:57 PM, EmperorPingu said:

To the developers credit, they make the game as versatile and amendable as possible, they both accomodate and actively encourage the production of mods, and are constantly making strides and efforts to make Vintage Story customisable to the player - all of which allows players like ourselves to fine tune and tweak the game to our own personal preferences.

In the early days of electronic gaming, video games were primarily linear... you would complete a level, move onto the next level, fight a boss or two, complete the game. We take it for granted now, but the concept of player choice wasn't always a given for any particular game. Ideas like allowing the player to choose what weapon they went into a fight with were revolutionary for its day.

One of the best games to illustrate this point was the Pokémon series. There's an argument to be had that a lot people might have played the Pokémon games because they liked the novel story of a world with magical fighting creatues, there are a lot of people who loved the series because it satisfied a deep-seated collectors itch (a perfectly valid game loop). I believe, that whilst other factors certainly helped and significantly contributed, the main component to Pokémon's resounding international success was the simple fact that player's were effectively given free reign to play as they saw fit. You start the game, you choose a starting pokémon, you then catch or trade what pokémon you want to have in your squad, you choose a strategy based on the pokémon's element types, you choose which pokémon to train, how to train them, whether or not you should evolve them due to inherant pros and cons to evolving or not evolving... This wasn't a game where you turned a wheel and watched what was being played out for you like a movie, this was a game where your choices mattered. Above all else, this was your journey, these were your pokémon. The reason Pokémon was successful was because it gave players a freedom they hadn't experienced before.

As many of you may know, the Pokémon series today is a joke, and little more than a cashcow for Nintendo to spank addicts with releases that barely even pretend to have the veneer of player experience. When Palworld came along, it was such an instant sensation that Nintendo to this day are trying to sue the makers of Palworld, Pocketpair, by patenting ideas like riding a summonable mount, all in an effort to smother the Palworld into oblivion (but that's another story...). Nintendo and Gamefreak took their player base for granted and only care about the Pokémon series insomuch that they can use it to milk every penny they can out of the players, whilst not even providing the most basic levels of game development or investment. They got greedy and took the absolute royal piss out of their loyal fanbase... When Palworld came along, it was an instant overnight success because it gave players everything they had been asking Gamefreak to give them in Pokémon for years but never did. In Palworld, you can go and catch whatever you want from the get go, there are no hardlocks on the map. You can actually catch and interact with your pokémon *ahem* "pals" in a 3D world - that whilst not exactly having the most graphical fidelity was still lightyears better than Gamefreak ever attempted, you can build your own base with your pals having an active role in your progression and having layered levels of strategy and player choice woven throughout the fabric of the experience.

The point of all this is to say that the direction that actually good and successful games take are those that lead towards the player having even greater freedoms, providing an exhaustive amount of avenues for player choice, and enabling as many styles of gameplay as possible. Nowhere is this seen and more critical than in the sandbox genre. We're in a sandbox game because we literally want to do a build and do whatever we want. Imagine being in a literal sandbox and being told you can build whatever you want as long as it's a sandcastle but only this one specific kind of sandcastle you make by turning over this specific bucket and nothing else...

As much as I dunk on Mojang and Minecraft these days because of how "meh" the experience has become (especially when you compare it to the beautifully long-winded  and satisfying grindy loops of Vintage Story), to their absolute credit they will always have my utmost respect for the ethos they went in with:

It's your journey. It's your world. You can do whatever the hell you want with it.

That's the point. In Minecraft, you are the master of your own destiny. In Minecraft you write your own story. The fact that Mojang understood how important this was, is the reason Minecraft is the most successful game of all time.

So - why the rant?

The absolute biggest thing to hold Vintage Story back from growth and player retention are mechanics within the game that don't respect the diversity of the player base. Mechanics like Temporal Storms and land-based Temporal Instability commit the cardinal sin of removing the player's capability of free expressive gameplay. They do not add to the player's ability to do more with the game - they actively make it so that the player has less choice with little to no reward for engagement.

Well... why not turn off temporal storms and instability then if you dislike it so much?

That's a fair question, but my answer is simple: I don't want to. I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on content. Maybe I actually want to engage with Temporal Storms and Instability in some capacity at some point during my playthrough... when I'm ready.

I'm not saying we should remove storms or instability entirely, but what I am saying is that their current form within the game is entirely moronic, and counter to the tried and tested traditional notion of allowing players the ability to ease into progressively more difficult gameplay.

What if I just to build for a while? What if I just want to take my time building up my strength, tools, defences, until such a time as I feel like I'm ready? It takes a long ass time to get even a basic armour that's worth actually getting - and when I do get an armour that might only half the damage I take, it slows me down so I can't even escape gameover when a bear or wolf pack comes along.

A lot of players are like this. My argument is that "creating a new world just for you" isn't always the right solution. Sometimes we want to play with friends, and amongst those we all have different styles and ways of playing the game... therefore, we shouldn't just dismiss the idea that different styles of gameplay should be accomodated as is, without resorting to the excuse of "well just change your world settings" - that's not always an option and it's besides the point.

My point above everything else (at the risk of sounding cringe), is that the game needs needs to move away from forcing the player to live out a vintage story, and instead needs to prioritise enabling the player to write their own vintage stories.

I was originally going to write this post as a collection of suggestions for the suggestions section of the forums, but the key reasons why I even came up with these ideas in the first place were to address the greater underlying issues I feel negatively impacts Vintage Story in many ways. I will include those suggestions here anyway as they are not the main point of this post, but rather a means to illustrate how we can think about these problems, and how to address them. Please feel free to critique my own ideas, or even add your own solutions to the problems I raise. Naturally my ideas aren't always going to be the best solution to a particular problem (Temporal Microwave Oven), but I feel very strongly that the community needs to come together to find solutions to these issues for the longevity of the game, the benefit of the community, and the enrichment of the player experience itself.

I honestly never thought about this, but that you mention it, puts light on the reason I've had slight inconveniences with vintage story, and I agree with you, a good game, is a game where you don't feel discomfort while making a choice, I mean, if you remove mobs from the game world, it feels constantly punishing, and you can also never get back to it when you feel like it... There should be a sweet spot where the game isn't simply creative, but also isn't annoyingly forcing you to deal with annoying mobs, and for example I LOVE what they did with having that in caves and in the deep, mobs spawn more, and they are stronger, this is a consequence,  but me just minding my business and waking up with a ramdom bowtie some how hitting me from blocks away and killing me , and seting me back to spawn, that's just annoying... I didn't do anything to ask for it, and yet, it came, in the case of wild animals this is okey, because I know, if in in a field with berry bushes, the chances a bear is here is high, I better stay weary.... But in sense of mobs, there's nothing you can do to go to them or Avoid them , rifts spawn in your house, rift activity just happens, in case of winter, is not annoying, because is my fault if I didn't prepare in time, knowing it will approach soon... But what can I do if it just happens a temporal storm appears out of nowhere ? ... I haven't read his suggestions yet, but im willing to, and I believe he has a very good point, which would make the game MUCH more accessible to sooo many players which don't want to deal with scary movs if they don't want to 

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, SCHPETZE said:

But what can I do if it just happens a temporal storm appears out of nowhere ?

Outside of bugged notifications/notifications turned off somehow, temporal storms shouldn't be appearing out of nowhere. There's always a warning eight hours in advance, which is plenty of time to prep your battle gear or otherwise find some sort of cover. Where it gets tricky is making long expeditions, or forgetting when the last storm was. In the case of the latter, there is a command you can run to check the time until the next storm, at least, but in the case of the former that's just part of the challenge of planning a long trip.

 

5 hours ago, SCHPETZE said:

which would make the game MUCH more accessible to sooo many players which don't want to deal with scary movs if they don't want to

There's nothing wrong with making a game more accessible, but that's best handled by the multiple options in the settings and mods so that players can tailor the experience to their liking, without changing the standard experience for everyone else. The more you water down the standard experience to appeal to a wider audience, the more it loses what made it special to begin with.

[Vexxvididu]

6 hours ago, Callorn said:

To me EVERYTHING related to combat with the default setting. Bears alone stop me from talking about the game. Deers  Feel too tanky (IMO a longbow with iron arrow should one shot them).I never entered caves  because of drifters. I feel that everything about combat is 2X times overturned against the player(ie blowthorn does x2 attack damage)

 

I agree and have voiced similar opinions before about all surface animals being too strong.  I actually think most monsters are fine and you can mostly avoid them till you have armor made and so forth.  Tailored gambeson or better armor makes most of them easy, but bears and wolves are ROUGH for starting players.  I switched them to passive a while back and never looked back, haha.

[CastIronFabric]

6 hours ago, SCHPETZE said:

I honestly never thought about this, but that you mention it, puts light on the reason I've had slight inconveniences with vintage story, and I agree with you, a good game, is a game where you don't feel discomfort while making a choice, I mean, if you remove mobs from the game world, it feels constantly punishing, and you can also never get back to it when you feel like it... There should be a sweet spot where the game isn't simply creative, but also isn't annoyingly forcing you to deal with annoying mobs, and for example I LOVE what they did with having that in caves and in the deep, mobs spawn more, and they are stronger, this is a consequence,  but me just minding my business and waking up with a ramdom bowtie some how hitting me from blocks away and killing me , and seting me back to spawn, that's just annoying... I didn't do anything to ask for it, and yet, it came, in the case of wild animals this is okey, because I know, if in in a field with berry bushes, the chances a bear is here is high, I better stay weary.... But in sense of mobs, there's nothing you can do to go to them or Avoid them , rifts spawn in your house, rift activity just happens, in case of winter, is not annoying, because is my fault if I didn't prepare in time, knowing it will approach soon... But what can I do if it just happens a temporal storm appears out of nowhere ? ... I haven't read his suggestions yet, but im willing to, and I believe he has a very good point, which would make the game MUCH more accessible to sooo many players which don't want to deal with scary movs if they don't want to 

two things:

1. if we just have mobs not spawn on player deeds the entire issue goes away. Same for storms. Want to go to a storm? fine, go find one of those portals outside your deed and jump in. done.

2. I am not for 'make game more accessible' as a default motivation. That is what AAA games try to do and I am not a fan of that. This view is not directly related to the suggestion itself more that I do not like 'make game more accessible' as a motivating decision. I think we have enough of that motivation in the market place.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

The Devastation parkour segments hold us back. Brown bears are way too fast to justify in vanilla, but you can mod their speed down; There's no modded solution for how annoying the Devastation parkour segments are. The early floors are okay, but once you start nearing the peak of the tower, it gets absolutely ridiculous. There's a part with an iron fence too in the early parts of Devastation where it's impassable unless you enter creative to break the blocks in front of you. Resonance Archives are extremely fun, and Devastation is the complete antithesis to that.

Edited Saturday at 05:16 PM by Discipline Before Dishonor

[williams_482]

I don't recall needing to enter creative to get through the Devastation part of Chapter 2.

Spoiler

I did get confused early on and look up a guide, which clued me in on how to jump and time-switch together to get past the first obstacle which required that. I also spent a fair bit of time figuring out how to work my way up the tower with jumps and time switches, and even took a break somewhere in there because it did take some mental effort to figure everything out. But all in all, I thought it was great? challenging, but worth it. 

 

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Resonance Archives are extremely fun, and Devastation is the complete antithesis to that.

We can agree 100% on this one. It's a misery session topped off by a very big let down of a fight.

Spoiler

 After spending all my time and dying over and over to figure out how to kill the stupid boss and then if flys away... I'm left empty handed (no reward at all except the stupid lens) and great I get to fight this thing again.